Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Finally, after starting the army in July, I have finished my Warhammer 3rd Edition Skaven army. It too longer than I had planned mainly due to me stopping several times to sort out other projects, leaving the army unbased for about a month once I had finished the painting, a busier than expected work schedule, and me wasting a lot of painting time chilling out and enjoying the summer here in Brighton and Hove :)

I compiled my army according to the list in the Warhammer Armies book, which can be found here:

When compiling the army I really wanted to make it a horde as I feel good Skaven armies, especially from this era, should be. I think I achieved this, managing to squeeze in 210 Clanrats, Slaves, Stormvermin, and Gutterrunners, not including the Weapon Teams, Heroes, and Rat Ogres. Unlike the other of my 3rd Edition armies I did'nt include and big monsters. I was going to add a magically bound Wyvern, but did'nt think it would really add to the army. I would have had to cut in other parts of the army where I did'nt feel it would be benefical.

Painting wise I wanted the army to be dark and scruffy looking, without being too much of a dark and indistinguible mass on the gaming table. I also wanted to avoid the 'laundry fresh' look of some armies. I started off with black undercoat, and then base coat of Games Workshop Mournfang Brown. I then used a mixture of drybrusing other colours on, or light highlighting on a basecoat, all of which was tied together a wash of Games Workshops Agrax Earthshade.

For the majority of the cloth I used Vellejo German Field Grey to give a uniform looking feel to the bulk of the army, without them actually having a uniform. To break up the mass of basic colours I did paint up bits of details, such as bags or hoods in different colours just to add a little more randomness to it all.
I did a Skaven Speed painting update here:

For a bit of fun I decided to paint the Heroes and Wizards a different coloured fur from the rest of the brown furred Skaven, to suggest either that they dyed their fur, or the warping effects of Chaos magic. I also painted the Gutterrunners black furred to hint at them skulkling around in the shadows and at night. I also decided to paint the Skaven's eyes glowing green rather than the ususal red, to suggest the influence of Warpstone, and to give the army a different look from other Skaven armies.

When basing I wanted to avoid dark looking bases which might make the whole army look too dark, especially when ranked up en-masse. So I opted for grey stoney ground looking bases. I also went for two types of flock, the green to tie in with the more general wargaming tables, and the tan to add a little more lightness to the bases and colour, as well as suggest dying grasses on the stoney ground. Painting the edges of the bases black made the whole models look tidier, I did try grey but it did'nt look right to me.

Miniatures wise I chose to keep my selection of models to the late 1980's so to keep that proper 3rd Edition feel to the army. As the Skaven were not an army I collected at the time I wanted to collect and army that I could have collected when I was going to in 1990, but decided to do something else. For this reason, all the models are from the C47 series Chaos Ratmen, the C27 Skaven range, the plastic Clanrats from the Warhammer Regiments set, and the plastic Skaven from Heroquest. Apart from a few Hasslefree Miniatures metal shields, the army is exactly what I could have fielded in 1990.

I am pleased with the compostion of the army, and how it looks now it's finished. I always liked the Skaven models, but when painting them I gained a new appreciation for the miniatures. I am pleased I finally got around to doing this project which I had being meaning to get around to for over 20 years!

Enjoy :)

The whole army.

Army General.

Green furred Skaven Hero with a Warplock Pistol.

The Army Standard.

I painted the army standard to look like the album cover by the band 'The Stranglers', named 'Rattus Norvegicus', which is the Latin name for the 'Brown Rat' ('Norway Rat' is the literal translation).

Close up of the Army Standard Bearer, sporting blue fur.

Close up of the standard.

General and his right hand rat.

Wizards.

The army has two Skaven mages, and I painted the Level 20 White furred as he is referred to as a 'White Skaven Sorcerer'; and the Level 10 Wizard I painted reddish.

Rear views.

I painted the Level 10 Wizard red as he has spines protuding from his back, and so I thuoght it would look good to suggest some sort of Chaos mutation.

3 Posioned Wind Globadiers.

Left and right side views, and rear view.

3 Jezzailachis teams.

Close up.

For variation I used one of the Command Group miniatures with a Jezzel as an alternative Jezzailachis model.

4 Warpfire-Thrower Teams.

I wanted to make these look a little more individual than the rest of the army and so painted the hoods up in a selection of colours and patterns.

Team 1.

Team 2.

Team 3, showing the other side of the barrel carrier, the back of the firer is just a cloak.

Team 4, showing the other side of the other type of barrel carrier.

6 Rat Ogres and 3 handlers.

Front and back of one of the two types of Rat Ogre.

Front and back of the other type of Rat Ogre.

Two handlers.

As I only had 5 Rat Ogres I added the C23 solid based 'Slave Ogre'.

The other handler is another Command Group miniature 'moonlighting' as something else.

10 Gutter Runners.

All of these are metal C47/C27 miniatures.

3 metal Gutterrunners.

3 more Gutter Runners.

20 Stormvermin.

I chose to paint them a different colour from the rest of the army to differentiate them as they are an Elite Unit. I chose purple as it seemed to suit them and I always like the purple Clanrats in the Warhammer Armies book.

The Stormvermin are all metal minatures, again from the C47/27 ranges.

The orginal Throt the Unclean miniature, in use as the Regimental leader. I like this model and thought an army of this era of Warhammer would not be complete without him.

Musican and standard bearer.

I green-stuffed the standard and it was not until I painted it that I releasied I had a little face looking out of it!

3 Stormvermin.

The Regiment are meant to be armed with double handed weapon. So I chose a mix of double handed weapons, spears, halberds, and hand weapons, to give an impression of them being armed as such, but not to have too uniform a look to the unit.

3 More Skaven.

Another 3 Skaven Stormvermin.

Last 2. The one on the right is in theory a mage model but I was one miniature short. If I ever expand the army, I will replace him with another random model and use him as a mage.

36 Clanrats.

This is the first of 3 Clanrat Regiments. I have used the plastic models from the Warhammer Regiments set for these and for the Slave unit. So in order to differentiate these Clanrats from the Slaves I painted them with blue hoods.

I called them the 'Blue Meanies' in reference to the bad guys in the film 'Yellow Submarine'.

Command group.

Platic Clanrats, without and with hood.

I made sure that all the clanrats in this unit had the Skaven symboled sheild to give them a sense of unity.

Rear view.

Two Regiments of 36 Clanrats made from the Heroquest Skaven, with added metal Skaven Command models.

I use the same standard and Musician for each of them two help identify the two regiments as Clanrats.

Because of the length of the Skaven weapons I decided to treat them as being armed with spears. It also means I did'nt have to convert 66 Skaven models or buy 66 metal spear armed models. I will just inform any opponent they are armed with spears.

The first regiment with a green Skaven standard symbol.

The second regiment, this time with a red symbol standard.

The command group of the second regiment.

I added a Hasslefree Miniatures shield to the unit leader.

The command group of the first regiment.

T2 of the Clanrat models.

Another 2 of the Clanrats.

The Heroquest models were not really designed to be based on 20mm bases and then ranked uo into regiments. So in oder to get them to work as a unit itis best to have half the unit facing to one flank, and the others to the other flank. It is also best to have the shorter weaponed models in the middle, with the longer ones on the edges.

I think it inadvertantly looks good in that it suggest they are more of a scurrying horde.

2 Regiments of 36 Slaves.

These are made up from the plastic Warhammer Regiments box set models, with metal command miniatures.

In order to keep them look the lowest of the low, I have given them plain shields and a lot of wooden effect shields than from Hasslefree miniatures.

First regiment.

Second Regiment.

Command models from the first regiment.

As with the Heroquest Clanrats I have used the same musican and standard bearer to give a unified identification to both units.

The second regiments command group.

Close up of the Slaves, one unhooded, the other hooded.

As the Slaves are unarmoured I have kept the armour on them brown to suggeest cloth rather than metal.

On the left is the other shield type I have used from the Warhammer Regiments set (I beleive it was Dark/Wood Elf shield option).

On the right is a rear view of the plastic Slave.

I was one Slave miniature short, so used a spare metal miniature to make up the numbers.

I am not sure what the next blog update will be on. I was meant to be sorting out Genestealer Armies, but I am not really that inclinded to start these projects at the moment. I have been distracted by buying more Squats from e-bay, and want to re-visit that army at some point. There is also the possiblity of me doing a current 40k edition Tau army.

There are still several projects I need to finish or start so I might also look at one of those instead. There is also a chance that Justin (from the Masterwork Guild blog) and I will be able to play another 5,000 point 3rd Edition Wood Elves vs Slann battle before Christmas.